Willie's Rant - "Cows"

Hi!  This morning, I opened my New York TImes to find that there's another crisis requiring the attention of the government of the people, by the people and for the people.

This time it wasn’t banking, Wall Street, autos or the housing industry with their hands out. No, the industry du jour wanting to feast at the public trough was Milk Cows.

We also heard a story about how things are not going well with the steel industry. Well folks, sorry to say, but get in line. Steel has come a long way in the U.S. over the last 40 years. That’s when it was decided that steel mills were causing Night to occur 24 hours a day in some major cities of the east and that might not be good for folks and after also losing business to the French, Germans, Japanese and Russians, closed them.

Today, the U.S. still imports 30% of its steel and cars are increasingly being made of new forms of plastic, such as the GM Saturn line. American steel companies have been left to make structured steel, stainless and custom stuff including recycled steel. The hope is that the Obama administration will help them write new orders.

Oh yes, about the cows.

Turns out, according to the story that folks around the world aren’t buying milk products like they had been when the world economy was booming. However, cows, well you know, still need to be milked every day, so there is an overabundance of milk. What’s to do? Well according to the story, milk is still being produced at the same rate, turned to powder, housed in government warehouses and paid by, guess who? Yes the American taxpayer.

The cow story also points out that the price of milk has only come down a few cents but that’s probably because it costs too much to reduce the size of the herds over the long term.

So, let’s see if I understand this. People aren’t buying milk products around the world like they were doing, mainly because the price went so high and then the global economy went south. However, instead of reducing the prices and some costs along the way, they have kept the prices at virtually the same level and got Uncle Sam to subsidize it all. As sportscaster Mel Allen used to say, “How about that!”

What a place, America!

© 2009. WBSeebeck

Why Does First Data Know So Much About Consumers?

I'm sure that it is true, as Mr. Capellas states, that he knows more about what we (the American public) are likely to do next than we do ourselves.

However, I hope that Mr. Capellas also knows that he and First Data Corporation hold a special trust as the guardians of that information as it represents the most private of American consumer information.

Why does First Data know so much?

In part it is because First Data Corporation, now a private corporation, represents both sides of most electronic transactions. It represents more than 50% of the banks and other financial institutions that issue credit/debit cards and other electronic instruments. It also represents more than 50% of all merchants that accept credit cards at their stores, restaurants on the streets of America's towns and cities and also on the electronic highway that transits our internet community.  First Data also represents more than 50% of all the ATM's that Americans use every day.

This means that First Data Corporation has knowledge of your bank accounts, credit activity, purchasing data, and much, much more.

I think that most Americans would agree Mr. Capellas, that as a result of the role your company plays in all aspects of financial transactions, that you and your company are in a very unique and most singular position. You hold a sacred trust it seems to guard the privacy of such transactions rather than thinking up new ways to monetarily benefit from the use or sale of this most private information.

Those of us who are pioneers in the use of electronic information and e-payment services believe that companies like First Data should be much more transparent.  It is bad enough that America's consumers feel held hostage by the credit reporting agencies, it doesn't need another company to exploit them.

Mr. Capellas, most Americans don't know that you have access to their bank accounts, their store accounts, their phone records and their Internet activity.  I strongly suggest that you keep what you and your company know about what is in those accounts to yourself.  Show the people of America what it mean to keep a sacred trust.

Copyright 2008 WBSeebeck

Speech: Connecticut Press Club: May 19, 2005

Remarks by

William B. Seebeck

Managing Director, Universal E-Brands

to

The Connecticut Press Club

Thursday, May 19, 2005 at 6:00 PM

Sornatale's Restaurant, Norwalk, Connecticut USA

"A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both," warned President James Madison. "Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives."

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.  What a great quote and from a president who could not have ever envisioned our world of technology and possibility today.

In 1977, when I was offered the opportunity to take a turn into technology, it was because I believe that not only did it represent the future, but because it would change the world in which we lived.  I wanted to be a part of that.

In 1982, I worked on the acquisition of the New York Times Information Service (NYTIS) by then Mead Data Central, now LEXIS/NEXIS and fell in love with the possibility of online.

To me, online represents the possibility of sharing information around the world and that eventually everyone can access it.  I believed then and I believe now that information is knowledge and that knowledge is truth and truth can set people free.

Sounds very idealistic doesn't it?  Well, I'm a true product of my generation.  The first president that mattered to me was JFK and the part of his inaugural address that called out to me was, "My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America can do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of mankind."

To me then and to me now, this represents the possibility of always something new.  The understanding that what was yesterday is not what is today, nor what will be tomorrow. Always the possibility of......

Bobby Kennedy used to say that, "Some people dreams dreams and ask why but I dream dreams and ask, why not?"

In my world, my friends, I operate out of abundance rather than scarcity because I believe that if you operate out of abundance, you get abundance and if you operate out of scarcity, you get scarcity.

And, always this is about the possibility of.....

Now, you may be asking yourselves, that sounds great Bill, but what are you talking about?

Tonight, my friends, I am talking about the possibility of the emergence of an entirely new society to replace the one that exists today.

It is in part the society I was hoping my own work over the last 25 years would help create and so I can tell you that I see it emerging.

It is very wild and confusing and unruly and also ordered and caring and brazen and like the technology that helped form it -- it can't be harnessed.  It is coming forth whether we want it to or not.

Again, we ask you Bill, what are you talking about?

My friends, I ask you to open your minds and consider what I am saying to you tonight.  You are all one way or another journalists, as I was once.  While you maybe skeptics, you are always open to a good story.

Tonight, I ask you to be open to the possibility of ....... a new emerging society!

In 1994, when the Internet went commercial, it rang in the dawn of a new form of human communication, because the Internet is a medium of communication.

In 1994, the demographics of the Internet were 70 percent male, 30 percent female, ages 18-25 with a skew to 33.  It was primarily American.

Over the last 11 years, it has grown more rapidly than any other achievement in human history. Yet, everyone around the world didn't get access at the same time.  In Saudi Arabia, for example, access didn't come until August of 1999 and even then it was not widely available.

Today, however, millions and millions are connected in one form or another to this network of human communication.

Knowledge now flows through it.  Other things do as well.

And Yes, it is a very open society.

So, now you may say, yes Bill, we know all of that, so what is the big deal?

The big deal, the possibility that I wanted you to consider tonight was the fact that new generations of our people have put this communications medium at the center of their lives.  As a result, their world's revolve around it and the way in which they live is dependent upon it.  It and the technology that has grown from it is now -- the WHAT IS -- of their society.

My friends, think of what has already changed;

The method of making and selling music is now forever changed.  It is electronic.

The method of viewing video (movies, etc.) will in the next 48 months be changed forever.  It will be wholly electronic.

The method of communicating is by voice, text, or video and via any kind of electronic device you can think of is now wholly electronic.

The way people meet and test relationships and yes, marry is now electronic and it is changed forever.

The way we are educated is increasingly becoming electronic and we are not going back, we are going forward.

The way in which we pay for things is almost wholly electronic and paper money and coinage is fast becoming extinct.

The way in which we elect officials and raise campaign funds, etc., is electronic.

And, my friends, for the generations that have grown up since 1994, with this electronic world at the center of their lives, it is the way they live their lives each day.  It is not a learned experience.

If you were six years old in 1994, and beginning school, you are ready for college today.  If you were 18 in 1994, you are 29 today.  The Internet and electronic media is your norm and fills many of your life expectations.

Very quickly, our world is becoming their world.

They have their own vision of politics, we learned that in 2004.  They have their own rules about everything.  It is a world created within this medium of communication.  They can discuss politics or religion or life with their peers in Norway or China, Australia or Japan. They see no barriers to human interchange.

They see only the possibility of .....

What are YOU doing to understand their world?  Trust me, it is theirs and not yours or mine.

Monday night, I was at a restaurant having dinner and watched a 20-something couple holding up their video phones and looking at each other through each others phones and laughing.

On Tuesday, it was announced that about 125 million consumers will be watching television on their mobile phones within five years.

Trials of mobile television have been carried out around the world, and consumers are expected to be able to pick up the first of 130,000 TV phones that will be made by the end of this year.  By 2010, that number will be 83.5 million.

Mobile TV signals will be handled by special chips that sit alongside the chips that process the mobile phone's calls, music and streaming video clips.

Are you ready for the possibility of that?

Do you think that what you put on a 29-inch screen will make sense for a screen that fits in the palm of your hand?  What kind of content will you be creating for this medium?

If you have phones with streaming video, what kind of applications or content will you or your companies, newspapers or clients be creating if a doctor wants to use the video part of the phone to show the condition of a patient in his/her office cross town or from another part of the world?

Are you ready for the possibility of that?

If you can talk with anyone via this medium, why not have the best teachers in the world speak to millions or to one on their subjects for broadcast to desktops, laptops, phones, PDA's or in a theatre?

If the world is changing with this generation and the ones to come after it, should we be looking at changing the way education is delivered?

Are there new possibilities?  Are we ready to change to meet those possibilities?

Today, Palm introduced its new Lifestyle handheld that fits in the palm of your hand.  It has a 4 GB hard drive built by Hitachi and can play video, music and do everything but act as a phone, and you know that's coming.  You see technology doesn't wait for anyone.  It has a life of its own.

You can be a little company in Finland that one day makes a mobile phone and the next day starts a revolution and changes the way we all do things and that's Nokia.  Who or what is the next Nokia?  And are you, my friends, ready for the possibility of a new Nokia?

Are you ready for weddings to be electronic?

Are you ready for court hearings to be electronic?

Are you ready to see your doctor electronically?

Are you ready to have your medical tests via links in your home or on the road?

And

What about the poor?  What will technology do for them?

What about the millions without health care?  How will technology help them?

What about the elderly? What will technology do for them?

Are you ready for the possibility of creating new systems to help the poor?

Are you ready for the possibility of using technology to re-build doctor's offices, change the way diagnostics, etc., are performed, have your doctor make an e-call?

Are you ready to let go of what was and give way to what is emerging?

Are you?

Always the possibility of .....

These are things that are coming.  Yet what is coming quicker than anything, I believe is the new society that has been created by our young people and some of us older folks.  It is very different.  It was created out of necessity and because the e-world made it possible.

I for one am not afraid of it, but it will change our world forever.

As communicators, a whole room of them here tonight, you carry a great burden in this new emerging society.  You can help inform and teach and arm them with the knowledge necessary to help in the evolution/revolution.

Remember what President Madison said, "A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.

Knowledge has given us this new power and it is clear to me that the generations that have made it their own ARE about to take the reigns of our society and govern with it.

Are YOU ready for that possibility?  I believe you are.

Thank you.

Copyright 2005  WBSeebeck

Speech: COMDEX Saudi Arabia, April 10, 2000

"Vision of the future in Information Technology & E-Commerce"

Remarks by

William B. Seebeck

Vice President & Managing Director, Technology & Media Group

The Dabbagh Group, Ltd.

At COMDEX Saudi Arabia 2000

E-Commerce in Action Conference

Le Meridien Hotel

Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

10 April 2000

Thank you for your kind introduction.

Mr. Casey, the management and staff of SBM/IBM, special guests, my brothers and sisters in technology.

"Visions of the Future in Information Technology and E-Commerce!"  Sounds like looking into a crystal ball to try and see the future. Yet, visioning is part of what I have been doing in this industry for some 25 years. What I like about doing it is that it is about possibilities -- challenges to existing structures and systems and to the human spirit.

More than being a visionary, in the online industry, I have put my own resources into developing ideas and new advances that I believed could happen. One of those was in 1991, when I developed a system and methodology that today we call Intranets. I called my system, Information Interchange Networks.  That was more than a year before the Internet became commercially available. Then in 1996, I introduced what I called Affinity IntraNets.  Creating direct point-to-point links by a corporation to vendors, customers, bank and accounting firm, industry analysts -- any institution with whom they had an affinity relationship.  Today, those links are called extranets.

So I say to you, it is not enough to vision, you must also DO!

The late U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy used to say, "Some people dream dreams and ask why?But I dream dreams and ask why not?

Eighteen years ago, when I started in the online industry, I found that there was a small core of believers that shared the vision of the possibility of online. Most of the print publishers did not agree with them, did not share the vision.  I remember in 1983, standing before the publisher's board of then Time-Life, trying to convince them that there was a business future in electronic information, that they could make money from it. Most disagreed. It took the leadership of their chairman back then Andrew Heiskell who believed that it was a possibility. Today, that company is Time-Warner, soon to be AOL/Time Warner.

What I thought about online information back in 1982 was the possibility that information about peoples and their commerce shared worldwide would reduce ignorance and foster peace. I viewed online as a powerful catalyst for change; that knowledge shared creates the possibility of peace and human advancement. I still firmly believe this.

This electronic revolution we are all apart of knows no national borders, we need only reach out through the Internet and the world can be there for us. Whether we are seeking information on a company or a university; medical research or building contracts; or in just linking through the power of e-mail with groups of people for business purposes; or with friends or family for pure fun.  With the creation of e-mail, we collapsed the information float that once divided us by geography and politics and religious beliefs.  We created a virtual world that allows us to educate, explore, conduct business, etc. all at the same time, in the same way, almost without risk.  The possibilities are endless.

So, you may say, Bill, what does this have to do with us here today?  We have heard much of this before from other people.

I have told you about these things because right now there is another possibility.  It is a vision of the future that I want to share with you right now.  It is a vision that I challenge you, each of you to embrace.  It is a dream that begs the answer of "Why not?"

My friends, the electronic revolution is moving quickly across the globe.  It is more than an industry, it is a movement.  Advances in technology each day change systems and structures and impact societies and their peoples.  No one nation can put a halt to it, for technological change no longer rests in the hands of institutions but rests in the hands of each user, wherever they are around the globe.

Yet for this movement to root itself firmly in commerce, it needs to regionalize.  For language is not the same.  Selling is not the same from one country to another.  Buying is not the same from one nation to another.  Who does the buying and how they do the buying is not the same from one nation to another.  Herein lies the power and the possibility for the Middle East.

In order for this region to take its rightful place in the networks and technology of the future, it is now time for the Arab world to exert itself and create a regional representation of itself on the electronic global stage.  In this way, the nations and peoples of the Arab world can properly promote their history, culture, language and beliefs equally to the world.  Only in this way, can we create a global medium that looks like the peoples of the world, rather than that of only one nation.

To achieve this vision and possibility, you must DO!

How?

Here in the Middle East, the number of children 0-15 years of age represents some 43% of the total population.  This tells us that education is the foundation of the future of the region.  This education must include a strong technological base and should be funded heavily with this future in mind.  What are the institutions of higher education in the region doing electronically?  Why are they not key elements in the development of new uses of technology linked to venture capital funds that help precipitate new Internet companies?  How many universities have incubator sites?  My friends, it is time to DO!

Second, the Middle East is the birthplace of successful commerce!  You need to reclaim this by moving more quickly into electronic commerce.  Why should some other region of the world have a de facto claim on the way commerce -- electronic or otherwise look or be conducted? DO!

Third, I have always said that there are three components to online -- communications, content and method of payment.  So, what about communications?  It is critical that the nations of the region rapidly open broadband data access as wide as possible.  One of the reasons that this is so critical is because wireless and satellite, which are already here in one form or another, will very soon render some land line options obsolete - therefore you will be holding onto nothing. DO!

Fourth, what about content?  Why has the region been speaking only to itself?  Where is the content that tells the world who you are?  Where is the content that tells the world about the history of each of the countries?  Where is the content that tells the story of your achievements in mathematics, science and technology?  Where is the content that tells the world about the life of an Arab family?  How can the world do business with the region if it does not know who you are and what you believe?

DO!

Fifth, what about the methods of payment?  The Arab world has some of the most advanced banks in the world.  It was here in this region that such methods of finance were first created. Why have the institutions not created online banking systems for all?  Where are the online credit card systems?  Where are the smart card systems?  Where is corporate electronic interchange?  DO!

My friends, my vision of what the electronic world looks like is representative of the world and its peoples.  Discord in the electronic world will come about when peoples of regions and nations feel left out of the process and the progress.  We must avoid this from happening. We can only stop that from happening by DOing!

Please do not think that you can control technology, because technology has a life of its own and it is global.  Once you have chosen to be a part of the technology revolution, you have to be willing to "Ride the Tiger" and move with the change.

Yet, if you answer my call today; If you meet the possibility of regionalization with great strength and effort and leadership, then technology will be your companion and not your foe.  It will open up new vistas and a much broader element of interchange and communication amongst peoples of the earth.  DO this for your people and the future of the culture you cherish and revere and are passing on to your children.

One of the reasons, as I mentioned before, that this is so critical, is because in the technology revolution, what was yesterday is not what is today and what was today is not what it will be tomorrow. 

For tomorrow, what I see is that wireless is about to come of age globally.  Issues relating to incompatibility and pricing have or are being resolved.  Investment is pouring into every wireless venture conceivable and so it should.  It is only through wireless that we achieve success in e-commerce.  It is only through wireless that we can achieve true mobility.  It is only through wireless that we are not confined by the enormous capital investment of land line infrastructure.

What will drive wireless even faster is the advent of sub-orbital satellite systems.  These platforms will begin to exchange content next year.  Further, existing U.S. satellite systems that were previously used for military purposes, the so-called C3 (Command, Control, Communications) will go commercial.  This will accelerate the process as two of the companies involved in sub-orbital broadband wireless communications -- Hughes and Loral were the original contractors for these C3 communications systems.  The other player in the mix -- Teledesic -- originally a partnership of Bill Gates and Craig McCaw personally, now joined by Boeing, has broad links to the traditional wireless and Internet based online services.

So, the cycle is that within 18 months, the world will begin to move its broadband transmission to wireless.  Will the Arab world and the countries of the Middle East be prepared to be part of this effort at the outset?  When we meet again this time next year, what will the region have accomplished to be an equal player in this effort?

This is the challenge.  It is not enough to vision.  It is not enough to dream.  You must DO!  You must embrace the possibility and make it happen.

May goodness and its teacher, and meeting the possibility of achievement in all your endeavors be your daily companion.

Thank you.

Copyright 2000 WBSeebeck